With Twitter and Facebook
And useless alleys and Jantar Mantar,
Which were benevolently left out of Section 144,
Allowing people the small mercies
Of boasting, roasting, masticating,
Everyone has developed the bad habit
Of having an opinion.

The evening smoke
Rising from the roasting corn
Wraps your heads in a sensuous aura
And you think you are the bosses—
Bosses on everything
From malnutrition to the moon.

Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you
But you are not experts.

It takes a certain level of expertise
To understand why there is no alternative
Why people must be killed
Why children must be maimed
Why rapes must be committed
Why lawmakers must flout the law.

It takes hard work, blood and sweat,
Erasing histories and creating fresh ones under tight deadlines
To develop the nuanced understanding
That with great power comes great arbitrariness.

If those in positions of responsibility
Didn't abort the questions brewing in others
They'd be reminded in a flash of their own,
And of the memory of others in similar positions

Who tried to be careful custodians of power
And started wondering
Who they were
Responsible for
Accountable to
Whose purpose they were fulfilling
Whose they had pledged themselves to.

They would then face
Sleepless nights, arrests, enquiries,
And the feel of a bullet injected inside their temple by their own hand.

A wise man learns from others' mistakes.
The wise men of today know
That to peer too deep into the sockets of the skull in your hand
Invites the risk of your skull soon being in another's hand.
They know the only way to keep their head is to bury it in the sand.
But you, all of you worthy of such men's contempt and disgust, you just don't understand.

The author blogs at anandankita.blogspot.in. ICF has previously published her 'Poems for Kashmir', which you can read here. The poems above are part of our unfolding Citizens against War series of literature and art, initiated in the spirit of listening: to our poets, artists, fellow citizens, against war and warmongering.